


don't stop flying / until you find me

by viotaq (taq)



Category: Frozen (Disney Movies)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Family, Gen, Kid Elsa (Disney)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:35:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22318735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taq/pseuds/viotaq
Summary: “I will not-”The other voice is low and Anna cannot quite hear it but Elsa’s voice whips through the air and to be honest, Anna’s spent more than half her life listening to Elsa through a door so it’s not difficult. It’s particularly easy right now because Elsa is furious and Anna does not need to be in the room to know that.She can feel the temperature of the room falling, subconsciously rubs at her own forearms.Then she hears it.“You are a monster, aren’t you,” the low male voice says, “no matter what anyone else says, you’re just a monster who’s barely in control.”Anna slams the doors open so hard that they bounce off the wall.--------Ongoing. Set after Frozen before Frozen II. Canon-compliant. Family.An... incident reverts Elsa back in time and Anna has to figure out how to make it all right.
Relationships: Anna & Elsa (Disney)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 88





	1. Prologue

_ Prologue _

* * *

“Enough,” Anna stops right outside the throne room. Elsa does not usually sound quite so annoyed during her meetings, well, the ones that Anna has attended, at least, and so she pauses, hangs back a little to wait and see and eavesdrop.

She does not remember where this contingent is from. Some faraway land. Not that this helps because they are all faraway lands. Arendelle is pretty far North and really quite remote.

“I will not-”

The other voice is low and Anna cannot quite hear it but Elsa’s voice whips through the air and to be honest, Anna’s spent more than half her life listening to Elsa through a door so it’s not difficult. It’s particularly easy right now because Elsa is furious and Anna does not need to be in the room to know that.

She can feel the temperature of the room falling, subconsciously rubs at her own forearms.

Then she hears it.

“You are a monster, aren’t you,” the low male voice says, “no matter what anyone else says, you’re just a monster who’s barely in control.”

Anna slams the doors open so hard that they bounce off the wall.

“How dare you,” she hisses, the red sheen of rage behind her eyes not giving her time to pause to greet as is customary, “how dare you say that to my- the Queen.”

The owner of the voice chuckles and it raises Anna’s hackles just as it sends a shiver down her spine. He leans back in his chair, tilts an unfamiliar head and strikingly piercing eyes at her, drawls, “Oh look, it’s the spare.”

“Enough,” says Elsa from across the room, and though the room does not warm up, her voice is tight but even, “it is clear that you had no intention to negotiate-”

“Negotiate? No, I do not negotiate with monsters.”

“I’m gonna-”

“Anna,” Elsa cautions, then turns back, “very well then, if we are not negotiating I will have someone show you out.”

“Are you a coward,” the man says, “or are you not saying anything because I’m right?”

Anna is going to stab this man through the heart. Or cut off his tongue. Anything to make him stop. She takes a step forward but a steely hand raises from across the room and it takes almost everything she has to hold herself back from at least punching him in the face. Almost everything and her love and respect for Elsa.

“I have no desire to explain myself to you nor do your opinions matter to me. This meeting is over.”

“I’m right,” he smirks.

Anna moves to punch him in the face but a dagger is up against her neck before she realizes it. This is a different kind of cold is all she has time to think before the temperature of the entire room plunges.

“Unhand my sister,” Elsa hisses, hands outstretched, “and I might just let you leave alive.”

“How am I supposed to trust the word of a monster?”

Anna wonders if she’d be able to duck away from the dagger, wrap a leg around his ankle and tackle him to the ground, but the edge presses harder against her skin and she realizes the answer is no. It is also clear that Elsa realizes the answer is no. Anna can see the beginning of a flurry.

“Let her go,” Elsa says, eyes flitting rapidly from Anna to the man as ice starts to spread from her feet, “you’re not here for her.”

“Clever girl,” he says, “now stop your ice right there. I’m not stupid.”

Elsa’s jaw clenches. She lowers her hands. The ice stops spreading.

“Good. Now, you and I, are going to have a little chat. Alone.”

“No,” Anna chokes out.

“Wasn’t talking to you, spare,” he smirks, “be quiet and let the adults talk.”

“Anna,” Elsa says, “it’s going to be ok.”

He sneers, “listen to your sister. She’s got a brain even if she doesn’t have a heart.”

Anna struggles but Elsa shakes her head fractionally and she stops. The man shuffles them over to the door.

“It’s going to be okay,” Elsa says and the last thing Anna sees before her vision goes black are the doors swinging shut.

* * *

“Your Highness!”

Anna groans, “Kai?” 

An eye opens. Wait. Why is the floor so close-

She leaps to her feet, ignores the way the room sways around her and ignores the pounding of her head, “ELSA!”

She shoves the doors to the throne room open with a bang.

Blonde hair in a loose braid - a body curled up on the ground in the middle of a fierce starbust of pure clear ice and Anna’s heart stops. No. No. It cannot be.

She runs, slips, catches herself amidst the dizziness.

“Stay away!”

The cry is heart-rending, choked out through trembling lips as the head turns to face her.

Anna freezes.

“S-Stay away from me,” Elsa shakes as she pushes herself up from the floor and gathers the too-large clothes of her dress around her, “Mama, y-you need to s-stay away from me.”

Anna stares back at her last memory of Elsa as a child.

Eight year old Elsa takes this opportunity to dash out of the room and Anna sees just what happened to the man who had threatened to kill her.

A shiver runs down her spine and for a moment, for a single moment, Anna is afraid.


	2. wake me up

She hears it slam and finds the door shut as she skids to a halt in front of Elsa’s childhood room. 

Elsa is fast.

Anna raises a hand to knock and instantly feels like she is 5 years old again, staring up at this same door. She’s gotten over it, she tells herself, she knows she has, but it sure doesn’t feel like she has. God. She’s taller now but it feels just as large and imposing and somehow she cannot bring herself to bring her knuckles down to the wood. It’s really that simple, just knock. She’s not an idiot.

A gentle hand on her elbow, a soft whisper in her ear, Anna jerks up to meet Gerda’s eyes.

“Your Highness,” Gerda says, “Her Majesty has never locked her door.”

Anna feels the air leave her lungs as if someone physically punched her, leans forward and thump, connects with the door.

The whimpers from inside the room stop abruptly.

“M-Mama?”

The word burns all the way down Anna’s spine, crawls into her heart and squeezes it, wrings it out. She does not have the time to think too much. Elsa needs her and Elsa needs her now.

Her hand drifts down to the doorknob and she turns it with trembling fingers. The door swings open smoothly and she takes a step into the room.

“You’re not Mama,” Elsa’s voice comes, “and you are not a-”

Elsa is a tiny figure in the middle of the purple sheets of the four poster, not a single light lit in this room that has not been used for two years but the moonlight sets her blonde hair ablaze as she hugs herself in a too-big outfit with ungloved hands.

Her tiny red-rimmed eyes widen, she scrambles away from Anna and every movement she makes feels like Anna’s heart is being frozen all over again and by the gods it hurts.

“No,” Elsa whimpers, cowering by the headboard, hands turned in on themselves as the crackle of rime and a dusting of ice forms on her bed, “no, no, no, get away from me, I-”

Anna watches as Elsa’s gaze sweeps over the freezing bedspread, as her small bare feet kick in their hurry to take her further away, sees the helplessness claw at her heart. She can’t stop it, Anna realizes, she can’t stop it because she doesn’t know how.

“Elsa,” Anna says, “Elsa, it’s just me, Anna.”

She braces herself for the ‘Go away, Anna’ that she can hear echoing inside of her head but it does not come.

“A-Anna?” Elsa sounds the syllables out hesitantly, almost reverently.

Anna nods.

“But you’re so, so, so big,” Elsa says, confusion washing over her features. Anna notices that the ice is no longer growing.

“You were even bigger just a few hours ago,” Anna finds herself saying. Oh wait. Should she have said that? Well, it’s true. No point hiding anything from Elsa. No story would make sense. The truth barely makes sense. Not that she even really knows what the truth is right now.

“Me?” Elsa’s eyes are practically dinner plates at this point, “Bigger?”

“Well, not that much bigger like sideways, but you are taller, and you are my older sister so I guess it makes sense?”

“B-But that’s- I’m ten.”

“Ten,” Anna breathes. Well, ten and eight aren’t all that different and it’s not like Anna was around to watch Elsa grow up, so she cannot be blamed for not knowing. That hurts. Ow. The knowledge hits Anna across the head as she takes in the already sharpening features of a face that she barely saw. They have the same nose. Just, smaller. Their eyes are a different color but just a little. 

“You’re not seven,” Elsa says, “You can’t have drunk that much milk. I drink my milk too.”

Anna is torn between laughing and crying at the pout that forms itself on the face of her sister. By the gods, she’s missed this Elsa, it’d been easy to push that aside once they’d overcome the Great Freeze together, to push those thoughts and those days down into a corner once she had her sister back but god she missed Elsa so much as a child and as a teen and to see the small figure just looking straight back at her without running away, Anna’s heart feels like it just might burst.

Elsa’s pout starts to turn into a frown.

“I’m twenty,” Anna says before the silence becomes too much.

“Twenty?” Elsa’s voice drops into a hushed whisper, her eyes hungrily roaming over Anna’s face, searching.

Anna nods.

“How?” Elsa asks, but she looks down at her hands all the same as if answering her own question.

Anna wishes she had a better answer, wishes she could direct Elsa’s thoughts away from her own powers, but she has no answers, can only shrug, “I don’t know, sweetheart.”

Elsa flinches at the word, a puff of snow appears on her hands and her gaze jerks up to meet Anna’s eyes.

For a moment, Anna’s breath is taken entirely away by the fear that swims around in that too-young face, by the sheer terror and disgust that lives in her eyes and sinks into the corners of her mouth. She wants so badly to take that away, wants to wipe that look off and make sure it never comes back again.

“It’s not- I-”

“I know,” Anna takes a few swift steps forward before Elsa can react, scooping the younger girl into an embrace, “Elsa darling, I know. It’s ok. You won’t hurt me.”

Elsa flinches at the first contact and now she trembles in her arms and she tries to pull away but Anna just hugs her fiercely with the pent up fear and longing of their entire childhoods.

“You won’t hurt me,” she whispers into Elsa’s hair, “you won’t.”

It is a few heartbeats before a small pair of hands reaches up around her to hug her back and it is Anna’s tears that fall onto the bed now that the sheer force of her sister’s love is all too clear to her.

“You’re crying,” Elsa breathes, her voice catching, “Why are you crying?”

“I missed you,” Anna lets the words stumble out of her mouth, “I missed you a lot, Elsa.”

Elsa falls silent for a beat.

Then, so quiet she almost didn’t catch it, Anna hears, “I miss you too, Anna.”

* * *

Elsa fights the sleep, Anna can feel it in the way Elsa’s head nuzzles into her shoulder whenever she tries to keep her eyes open, but she succumbs and falls asleep within minutes of Anna’s hands gently patting her back. Small hands relax, a light chin rests gently on Anna’s shoulder. Poor thing must truly have been exhausted because she hadn’t even needed to sing Mother’s lullaby to lull her to sleep.

She shifts them both down, just lies there drinking in the small angular features of her little big sister and a pang of something that hurts shoots through her before she smooths it away, holds on a little tighter the way Mother always used to hold on to her.

Elsa shifts a little, turns her face further into Anna’s shoulder and Anna can feel her heart melting. 

Anna would happily be her pillow till morning, the next day, forever, if it means she can forever keep the look of peace, the tiny upturns of the corners of her mouth, the way her ungloved hands clench themselves around the shawl that covers them both.

But there is a dead man to think about in the throne room, perhaps melted now, and she has to see to it that a possible diplomatic incident is averted, that- is this how Elsa feels?

She doesn’t know if that is how Elsa used to feel but she knows that she has to do something before the next morning so she gently peels little Elsa off of her, lifts little arms, tucks the child in under the blanket, leaves the shawl tucked in under Elsa’s chin, watches as she shifts a little in a sleep, reaching out a little and it is all she can do to not reach back and pull those small hands in hers and whisper away her fears.

Elsa settles into the pillows with a soft huff of air, chest rising and falling gently with each breath and Anna just honestly wants her to be happy.

She slides out the door with one backward glance. The rays of moonlight cast criss-crossing shadows of the window frame onto the bed. She will be right back. They will fix this together. Somehow.

“Your Highness,” comes Kai’s voice as Anna exits the room, “how is Her Majesty?”

Oh what a question.

“She’s asleep,” Anna says, sighs, “Kai, she’s-”

“If you’d pardon me,” Kai says, “I am aware of Her Majesty’s… condition.”

He pauses, puts his hands together, looks down, then back up at her and Anna is reminded that this is a man who has known everything and been powerless to do anything.

“Is she,” he wrings his hands, “well?”

Anna pats him gently on the shoulder. 

“She will be. Now, we have some work to do.”

Kai nods, straightens himself up, “I had some of the staff clear that out earlier.”

Anna turns to him.

“Melted about an hour ago,” Kai says.

“Ah. And-”

“They are, naturally, sworn to secrecy. Though I did mention that he’d attempted to attack Her Majesty and I do believe they might have accidentally dropped him more than once.”

Anna winces, “Thank you, Kai.”

“Just doing my job, Your Highness.”

Kai takes in her slightly rumpled dress, frowns, “Your Highness, I can have a bath drawn for you.”

Anna yawns and stretches, only now noticing a light pounding in her head, “That would be divine.”

Kai smiles.

* * *

Anna pops a square of chocolate into her mouth, lets it melt on her tongue as she sinks into the cushions of her study chair. Kai is wonderful and though the hour is quite late, the hot water has kneaded the tenseness out of her shoulders.

It’s not like Elsa hasn’t been sick before. There is precedent, the Council will take on most of the day-to-day duties, they would collect the important decisions and Elsa would take a look at them in the evening. Anna supposes that since Elsa is, well, even more indisposed than usual, that she, the heir, would be the one taking a look at these in the evening.

Which is probably the easy part.

The harder part is figuring out how to get her big sister back.

For all that it has been intensely cathartic to see that Elsa had definitely loved her all this time, they cannot go on like this forever. Not even just for Arendelle, not just for the kingdom, but for Elsa.

Anna knows that she owes it to Elsa, past, present, future, to find a way to bring her back. There has to be a way to bring her back. To be honest, she doesn’t even know what happened and it’s really not like she can march up to little Elsa and ask her to recount whatever happened.

Anna winces at the memory of the dead man.

Yeah, that’s not happening. That should stay dead and hopefully those memories stay dead as well. She- oh god.

Anna rockets up from her seat, starts to pace.

She had been assuming all this time that it had been Queen Elsa, well, big Elsa who had been the one to kill the man but what if it had been the little- no. No, little Elsa could not have killed someone, she would not have, but her powers are less controlled, aren’t they?

Anna’s hands tangle through her hair. Think, Anna, think.

Did it look like little Elsa might have killed him?

She looked, well, she looked- Anna’s never known what ten-year-old Elsa was like so she honestly cannot tell what kind of fear that was that she had seen in those widened eyes.

Anna groans and slumps back into the chair.

Ok. Back to the facts.

_ She killed him. _ Anna shakes that thought out of her head.

One. She was only knocked out for at most a few minutes, probably closer to a minute. She knows this because people who get knocked out and stay down for longer than a few minutes on the practice grounds very rarely stand up afterwards and she definitely got up.

Two. The door was not frozen shut. She brings back the memory - Elsa crumpled on the floor in a starburst of ice, the fear, the way she’d scrambled from the room leaving a trail of frost in her wake and... 

Well, that’s all the non-obvious facts she has. 

The obvious ones like a man is dead and Elsa is little are there too but there is no explanation for that besides magic and as Anna is impossibly, incredibly aware, she knows nothing about magic.

She’ll just have to go ask someone who knows then.

Anna sits up, tugs her robe around her.

The ear-splitting crash of what must be half the castle’s windows smashing at once comes echoing down the corridor and for the second time in less than a day, Anna is flying down the halls to Elsa’s room.


	3. in your footsteps

The wind howls through the corridor, ripping at curtains. Snow buffets Anna’s face - the last time the snow was this bad was during the Great Freeze and her heart is pounding almost straight out of her chest. She should not have left Elsa. She should not have left Elsa alone.

Anna turns a corner and almost trips on Elsa.

That’s the first thing Anna thinks when her brain can think again, when her bare heels have dug into the snowy floor, her slippers somewhere between her room and this corridor, she skids to a halt after almost tripping over a small bundle of cloth.

Immediately she is scooping the sobbing frame into her arms, ignoring the way Elsa is pushing at her, fighting the frost that gathers on her ears and her lashes and she’s felt this cold once before, just once before but Elsa needs her.

Elsa needs her so Anna holds her close, “shh, shh, it’s ok, you’re ok, I have you. I’m here, Elsa, I’m here.”

Elsa gradually stops struggling, the sobs quieting and Anna brushes the tears from her chilly face with the pads of her thumbs. The snow storm has stopped though the wind still howls through the windows. 

Anna shivers.

The painting of Queen Elsa looks down at them from the hallway.

Elsa hiccups. 

Once, twice.

“Papa,” comes the soft whisper, “Papa's gone?”

Oh. Anna winces. That is not quite how she imagined Elsa finding out that Papa is gone. She nods slowly.

Then Elsa forces the air from Anna’s lungs with her next quiet words.

“Was it me?”

“No!” Anna cries, startled as she leans away to take in the look of devastation on Elsa’s face, “no, no, no, no, never, you would never. You would never hurt us, Elsa, you would never.”

“But I did!” Elsa chokes, “I hurt you, and I hurt them and I-”

Anna gathers her closer, "It wasn't you, darling, it wasn't. Mama and Papa would never want you to think that."

Elsa goes absolutely rigid and the next thing Anna feels is a prickling running up her arms that forces her to drop her sister and stagger back. She brushes needles of frost off her gown and watches them clatter to the floor.

The wind picks up and a swirl of ice appears overhead.

Elsa turns widened almost unseeing eyes to her.

"Mama too…?"

Anna wants to lie to her but her mouth will not move. Her lips will not part. Her heart just pounds in her chest as her teal eyes meet ice blue ones framed in a cracking soul.

Anna sees Elsa's heart shatter into a million pieces and rushes forward, ignoring the ice and the frost that threatens to swallow her - been there, done that, no longer afraid - and holds the trembling little form close to her heart.

"You have me, Elsa, I'm still here. I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. I promise."

She rides the storm out until she can barely feel her face, then a quiet, "Promise?"

"Pinky promise," Anna loops a stiff finger around Elsa's. Elsa curls her pinky back.

Ah, thinks Anna, Elsa's hand is warm.

* * *

This time, Anna is there when Elsa wakes.

She is there to see the first wrinkle of her nose, the first measure of a frown, to see the blanket go crisp and white under a clenched fist.

Elsa stretches, nuzzles her head further into her pillow, then an eye cracks open.

"Hey sleepyhead," Anna smiles.

Elsa blinks. Then her face falls. Anna can feel the room temperature falling. Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear. What should she-

"Morning hug?" emerges from her mouth before she realizes what she just said.

Elsa's head tilts to a side in confusion.

To be honest, Anna has no idea what she is doing, holding her arms out like this but Mama used to hug her awake for years so maybe… 

Elsa looks hesitantly at her. Anna can see her gaze flick down to her own tiny hands then to the still-crisp blanket. 

"You won't hurt me," Anna says, "I know you won't."

Is this too much, too fast? She doesn't know. She never knew ten year old Elsa so she doesn't know what too much looks like. But she knows eight year old Elsa loved warm hugs and twenty-one year old Elsa loved hugs so it-

Elsa burrows herself into Anna's arms.

"Morning Elsa," Anna says.

"Morning Anna," comes back in return, muffled against her stomach and Anna cannot say when the last time was that two words made her feel so warm.

She looks out the window and a grin comes to her face.

"Hey Elsa?" 

Elsa turns to her.

"Wanna build a snowman?" 

Elsa's eyes go wide. Her lips tremble. Anna smiles encouragingly, wiggles her eyebrows.

Elsa nods and Anna cannot hold back her whoop of joy.

Elsa giggles.

Anna tries not to cry at the sound.

* * *

The gates are closed, which is the only way it is safe for them to be playing in the snow outside.

Or, more precisely, Elsa is just lying down staring up at the sky at the snowflakes falling. 

Anna knows how ironic it is that she gave the order to close the gates and shut the windows but this is different. This is temporary. Until they find a way to make this right. Until she figures something out. She'll figure something out. She will. She's not going to let this take 13 years this time.

A sniffle.

She sits up and shuffles over to see Elsa wiping her eyes with the back of the mittens she made her put on.

Elsa looks up at her.

Anna rubs her cheeks gently.

"It smells good to be outside," Elsa mumbles, swipes at her eyes again.

Anna takes in a deep breath of the fresh winter air lightly scented with the fragrance of pine. The deep breath stops her heart from breaking as it has been trying to do for the past day.

"And the sky is so big," Elsa says, "and I miss Mama and Papa and I missed you and I don't know what's going on and I'm scared."

Anna doesn't know Elsa manages to put cracks in her heart and fill them at the same time but she supposes that is a special power that only sisters have. 

"Snowflake," she manages, "we'll work this out. We'll work this out together. Me and you."

"Ok," Elsa twines small damp mitten hands around her own, looks up at her like Anna is her whole world, "I trust you."

"And I trust you," Anna says, "I always have and I always will."

* * *

If Anna had any doubts that Elsa would not remember Gerda, they are wiped clean by the shy smile that grows on Elsa's face when Gerda enters the room where they are drying their wet things in front of the fire.

"Gerda! It's so nice to see you!" Elsa runs over then hangs back at the last minute.

"Your M-Highness," Gerda's voice trembles.

"Are you OK, Gerda?"

Gerda's face softens and it is almost as if she too has been thrown back in time, "I've never been better, Your Highness."

Elsa beams up at her and Anna can see Gerda holding back the urge to hug her.

"Anna and I built a snowman today Gerda, and nothing happened. Like you said. It was fun to be outside."

Gerda dabs at the corners of her eyes, "That's wonderful, Your Highness."

"You were right, Gerda- Gerda why are you crying?" 

Gerda meets Anna's teary eyes from across the room. Anna nods.

Gerda opens her arms and Elsa dives in without hesitation.

"Don't cry, Gerda. It makes me sad when you're sad."

"I'm not sad, Your Highness. I'm not. Oh heavens above, I'm not sad at all."

* * *

"So she's little. And she's with Gerda right now."

"Yes. She doesn't seem to remember a thing, Kristoff. I don't know if she did it or if that… Monster of a man did anything. It's clearly some kind of magic but you know I don't know anything about magic."

"Well, Grand Pabbie probably does. I can take you there."

"I- Could you tell me how to get there? She's with Gerda now but she's known Gerda for much longer and I think new people might be a little harder-"

"Ah."

"I mean, you're not a new person to me but she's-" 

"Oh, don't worry about me. I got you, Anna. Now, you head out the gates and take the turn through the…" 

* * *

"Are you going somewhere?" 

Anna enters Elsa's room.

"You went to the stables. I saw you go."

"I was just going to talk to you about that," Anna says.

Elsa looks confused.

"Well," Anna sits down next to her, "I was going to ask if you wanted to come with me."

"Go? With you?" 

Anna nods.

"Where are we going?" 

"To get answers," Anna says, "to questions I don't know the answers to."

Elsa's face shutters but she nods.

* * *

Elsa's eyes are squeezed tight shut as her hands grip tightly to Anna's midriff.

They haven't even left the stables and yet her breath comes in shaky puffs. Her fingers tremble.

"Oh," Anna says, putting the reins in one hand and gently patting her with the other, "is this uncomfortable?"

Elsa shakes her head.

"It's going to be OK," Anna says, "Kjekk is a gentle soul. We're gonna be OK. He loves you because I love you."

Elsa's grip tightens.

"I won't let you fall."

Elsa nods but the trembling continues.

"Oh, and the trolls helped me the last time. They're nice folk, I promise."

Elsa shakes her head, chewing on her lip as she trembles harder.

"They-"

Anna waits for Elsa to continue with a soothing hand.

"They took your memories," Elsa says, "They said people would be scared of me."

_ They took you from me _ , Anna hears.  _ They took everything that mattered from me.  _

Anna hugs her.

"Nothing is going to take me from you now, Elsa. Not the trolls, not magic, nothing. I'm always going to be here with you."

It does not escape her that Elsa does not ask her to promise.

* * *

"True love," Anna grinds out, "you're saying it has to be an act of true love?" 

Grand Pabbie nods.

"Elsa darling," he says, "Do you mind heading over there with Bulda for a moment? I'd like to talk to your sister in private for a bit."

Elsa chews her lip.

It is clear to everyone that she does not want to leave. Anna also does not really want her to leave but Grand Pabbie is Grand Pabbie and he must have his reasons so Anna squeezes Elsa's hand gently, "I'm going to be right here. I'm going to be right here with you. I promise. Trust me?"

Elsa takes in a deep breath.

Anna nods.

Elsa lets her fingers fall to her side. Her jaw clenches though her eyes dart all around.

"This way dearie," Bulda says.

Anna watches Elsa's small figure disappear out of sight. 

"Alright, let's get down to it," she says, "because the way you're describing it it's almost like you're implying her heart is frozen."

"Well," Grand Pabbie shrugs.

"That's impossible. Her heart can't be-" 

"It is what it is, my child."

"So is she going to freeze like I did? What's going to happen to her? Oh God, her hair is already white and she doesn't feel cold. How are we going to know when it's too much? I-"

"I suspect," Grand Pabbie says, "that this is a more deliberate sort of freezing and if there's anything I've learnt about your sister, it's that she's extraordinary, Anna."

"So she's not dying?" 

"I don't think so, but I cannot say for sure. You want to get her back as soon as you can."

Anna is this close to throttling a rock. Not that it would work. But she could try. She could probably try-

"Wait. Deliberate?" 

Grand Pabbie nods.

"You think  _ Elsa _ did this?" 

He looks back at her, then looks in the direction where Elsa and Bulda disappeared off to.

"But-"

"I certainly don't think she knew that it would turn her little again," he says.

"So that was a side effect."

Grand Pabbie shrugs. Anna is coming to realize that Grand Pabbie should not be shrugging. He should be all-knowing. Shrugging is bad.

Anna puts a hand to her face, "And you said True Love."

Grand Pabbie nods, "True Love is the only way to cure a frozen heart. You know that."

True love. True love. It would have been hard - there is always the tiniest possibility that Big Elsa is a genius and is hiding a lover away somewhere though that really probably isn't the case. But Little Elsa definitely isn't.

And Mama and Papa are gone and-

A chill grows in Anna's heart.

"But we've been together for a whole day. And Gerda too. We love her, Grand Pabbie. We do. You know we do."

_ And nothing has changed. _

The thought that they aren't enough, that  _ she _ isn't enough hurts. But this isn't about her. This is about Elsa and by the gods Anna is not going to let anything take Elsa aways from her. Not now and definitely not like this.

"You can't do anything?" 

"There is nothing I can do, Anna. The heart is not so easily persuaded. You know this. It has to be True Love."

Anna's distress must be showing on her face because Grand Pabbie gathers her hands in his.

"Anna dear, we have always feared that Elsa's powers were too much for her. Now we must hope that they are _enough_."


End file.
